


A Girl named Grace

by 20SomethingSuperHeroes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M, Homeless Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 21:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4408388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/20SomethingSuperHeroes/pseuds/20SomethingSuperHeroes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A stranger comes to stay at the homeless shelter where Grace Porter volunteers.  She wanted nothing better than to help him, but she wasn't planning on falling for him.</p><p>Setting: Four months after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Girl named Grace

I.

She was standing in the food line scooping beans onto the trays when she first saw him. He was one of the few who braved holding a loaded platter with one hand, but he seemed to be the only one who did so without trembling. The single hand was bruised and chafed with dirt under the fingernails. The other was in the jacket pocket, out of sight, elbow bent. She looked up to greet him as he passed, but her voice died in her throat as she began to speak. 

Every now and then, Grace Porter met someone at the shelter who was different, someone whose case was more extraordinary, or someone whose time at the shelter would somehow be different. But never in her life had she been able to tell from just a first glance that a case was somehow special. And she never would again.

His clothes were worn and tattered, a large, beaten jacket over a threadbare gray sweater and frayed jeans. His hair was long, scraggly, unkempt, uncared for and hidden under a baseball cap. But it was his face that held her attention. His mouth was set in a chiseled line across the middle of his face, neither smiling nor frowning nor obscured by the stubble of his chin. But his brows were creased in a permanent frown over his deep-set blue eyes. She only had a half a second to get a full view of that pained, pale face until he turned away and the next recipient came up for his spoonful of baked beans.

Grace was a masters’ student in social work with a full-ride scholarship at the university, both volunteering at the shelter and using it as a base for research on the homeless population of Denver’s suburbs. She was drawn to special cases because they were offered good insight for her research, and the drive to understand the people who came to the shelter brought her into contact with them. She didn’t just want to help, she wanted to make a change in the world. 

But there was something different about this man that kept her attention, something that made her think there was more to this one than what he could offer for her studies...or what she could offer to him.

As the line moved, Grace was able to keep her attention on the other patrons, but thoughts kept coming into her mind in the manner of, Oh, who is this guy? I’ll bet he has quite a story, and Wow, you don’t see people like him every day. Will he stick around or wander off and come back for breakfast, like some of them do? But there was something different about these thoughts, not the eager curiosity she reserved for the other patrons but a nervousness, a desperation. Her heart pounded as though she were running, but what she was racing to or from she could not tell. And she could not keep her mind from the image of his face. Her sentiments tasted slightly of infatuation: it was something she had felt before, but not quite like this, not at first sight or for a total stranger. But every infatuation, she had learned from experience, is different.

Towards the end of the serving period there began to be gaps in the line, and it was during the first of these that she saw the back of his scraggly, unkempt hair. A couple of gaps later, when no patrons had passed for a full minute, she finally saw found him sitting in the back of the hall, no one else at the table but two elderly black gentlemen who were clearly not talking to him.

She returned the empty pan of beans to the kitchen, and while she was there Mabel Grant, the Shelter Director, advised her to take a break. So Grace removed her hairnet and got a styrofoam bowl full of beans and coleslaw and headed into the dining area. Scanning the emptying room, she saw that the stranger was now alone at his table. She took a deep breath and marched to the back of the room with her bowl, her cup and her spork to join him.

“Hi,” she said when she reached the table. The man only looked up at her, his face not betraying surprise at the intrusion. “Do you mind if I sit here?” He hardly even nodded. He just moved his head slightly up and down, and she sat across from him. “I’m sorry. If you’d rather be left alone, I’ll go ahead and leave.” He just stared at her. “My name is Grace. I was one of the servers in the line, but you probably don’t recognize me without my hair net on. I work here. How about you? Are you new in town? Just arrived? Or did you decide to come in for the night?” 

He stared at her blankly. Not confused, not scared, not affirmative in the slightest. 

“Do I talk too much? People say that’s a problem I have. I’ll be quiet now.”

Then he spoke.

“No, you can keep talking. I don’t have much to say.” His voice was soft and deep. But hearing it gave her some comfort, relieving her that he was a human being after all.

“You don’t, then?” said Grace. 

“Naw,” he said, giving her a slight smile. It was the first sign of emotion he had given her, but all he seemed to give her was faint amusement. Something deeper was still in his face, or behind it, that would not give. Nothing she could pull out.

“Do you have a name?”

“No,” he said. “Not that I know of.”

“Amnesia?”

“That might be it, actually. But,” he hesitated, then scooted in closer to her, and spoke even more quietly, “I have run into a couple of people who called me Bucky.”

“Bucky?” she echoed wonderingly. “Who’s been calling you that?”

“I’m not sure who they are,” he said. He bent his head over his tray slightly, the tips of his mouth creasing downward. She noticed that contents of his tray were uneaten, a couple bites of coleslaw, the skin peeled off the chicken, but other than that his food had not been touched. 

She backed away for a minute, puzzled, wondering what to say next. “Can I...call you Bucky?” 

He shrugged.

“You know, I work for the shelter. You can get all the food you want from us and we wouldn’t care less, but our policy is if you’re going to spend the night or receive other  
services from us we have to at least have a name.”

“You have sleeping quarters?” he probed.

“Yes, in the back,” said Grace, eagerly. 

“When do I sign, then?” 

“Check-in for beds is at ten o’clock.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine, but you may want to finish your supper fast because they start cleaning at nine-fifteen and close the kitchen at nine-thirty.”

“All right, then,” he said, picking up his spork with his right hand. “You just keep talking, and I’ll eat.” He took a big glob of coleslaw in his spork, and he maneuvered it into his  
mouth. It was then she noticed that his left hand was still in his pocket, right where it had been when he had moved through the line. She leaned over to have a better look at it. 

The hand was shoved into the pocket so deep that even the end of the sleeve was buried inside it.

“Are you right-handed or left handed?” she asked.

He leaned over to make eye contact with her. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Well, is there anything wrong with your left arm?”

“My arm’s just fine, and can use it just as well as my right. I’m, oh, what’s the word, I’m ambidextrous.”

“Well, we’re not going to cut it off if you put it on the table.”

“Yes, but you don’t need to see it, either, if I don’t need to use it.”

“I thought you said it was just fine.”

“It’s not--I mean, it is, but it isn’t.” She had hoped that he was just teasing her, but instead he began to look uncomfortable. He squirmed in his seat a little. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t want to bother you--”

“No, it’s fine,” he said, waving his spork with his left hand.

In a more conspiratorial tone, she asked, “But seriously, though, what do you do when you use the restroom?”

“That’s what stalls are for,” he said, and then he shoved more coleslaw in his mouth.

“So, Bucky, then--I can call you that?” she began.

“Call me whatever you like,” he said around a mouthful of beans.

“Right, well, about me…” In spite of her own life story being, well, her favorite for sharing, this telling was somehow off. Perhaps it was because she had told it before so many times that she was extremely casual this time around, and let the words just roll off her tongue while she watched him eat. Granted, watching anyone eat, a man especially, was not enjoyable, but he tended to take small bites, and he would watch her over his food as it traveled repeatedly into his mouth. She thought he looked a little like a Viking with his long hair, eating his chicken one-handed, and she had to let out a little laugh but then tell him it was nothing. As her mouth moved around her words, her eyes were searching his. As she watched him, she saw different moods, different stories cross his face, sometimes in flashes, sometimes in different places like the creases in his forehead. He was entertained a little by her story, nodding in response to most of the things he said, but his eyes regarded her with a little suspicion, a little curiosity, a little annoyance. There was something in his aspect that seemed to be desperately pleading for help, for guidance, indicating that he had wandered far, nowhere to come from, nowhere to go. But these aspects were all on the surface. Underneath them was something else, something that was not quite smothered by all of these other tensions. She thought she knew a word to describe what she saw in him, but her mind was preoccupied enough with entertaining him at the moment that she could not put her finger on it. 

“Well, it looks like they’re cleaning up now. You can go join the line for the sleeping quarters, if you like. It was nice meeting you, Bucky.”

“Nice meeting you, too,” he said, almost half-heartedly. His head sank downward again as she returned to the kitchen, the spell of her presence breaking as he resumed his silence.

It was as she was cleaning up the dishes it hit her that the word she was searching for to describe what she saw in him was emptiness. An emptiness that came with self-awareness, and pain.

It had been an exceptionally busy night at the shelter, and by the time the kitchen and the dining area were cleaned and closed it was ten-thirty, just after lights out in the sleeping area. Grace asked Andrea Meen, the shelter assistant director, if she could see the roster for the night’s guests. Searching the roll for the men’s room, she found the name Bucky listed for bed forty-five, but no surname. 

When she got home, she did an internet search. It was normally against the shelter’s privacy policy to do so, but he seemed like the type of person who would be unable to help himself, especially if he did have amnesia. Grace found no matches on the missing persons lists, no criminal records, no social media avatars. The top result of a Google search was for a James Buchanan Barnes with the nickname Bucky who had fought in the second World War with Captain America, and that was the closest she came. She guessed they were probably related.

II.

The stranger disappeared before breakfast the next morning, but came by at the end of lunch two days later. Grace was not in the serving line but socializing among the patrons in the dining hall when he caught her eye. She had just returned from her morning classes at the university and was relaxing briefly before setting to work for the day. But seeing him hardly relaxed her. She excused herself from her conversation and went up to talk to him.

“Where have you been?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “Out and about.”

“You know you can stay at the shelter full-time if you like,” said Grace. 

“I...don’t like crowds,” he said. He refused to look at her but instead kept his eyes on his tray.

“Yeah, it was a little crowded the other night,” Grace admitted. “It gets full pretty frequently. You were lucky you got a bed.”

“I guess I’ll be lucky to get one tonight, too, if I stay.”

“Well, if not I guess I’ll see you around.”

She walked away, surprised at how she tended to banter with him in their conversations. Was there a sense of humor, she wondered, under all that pain she saw in him? Could  
she draw it out?

She went into the shelter consultation room to set up her computer. It was her turn to do job consultations that day. Grace thought the best way to start Bucky on the road to recovery from...whatever...would be to treat him to the shelter’s services and go from there. The first scheduled appointment was not for another half hour. Patrons who were invited to consultations benefited just as much as those who sought them on their own. She returned to the dining area. Most of the shelter residents had returned to the sleeping area, others had gone to the living area. Those who stayed were either chatting or playing games. But Bucky was seated by himself at one of the tables, leaning on his one arm, the other still in his pocket. 

“Hey, Bucky,” she said. 

He looked up at her, but looked back down almost immediately.

“I want to help you,” she said, sitting down across the table from him. The best way to be persuasive with others, she found, was to be firm and direct, but not forceful. “I’m in  
charge of job consultations right now. I’m free for the next few minutes. I can squeeze you in.”

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m not fit for employment.”

“Too many people say that who don’t know what they can do,” she said. He said nothing. “There has to be a way I can help you. You don’t want to stay homeless forever, do you?”

Still nothing. He was staring at the table like she wasn’t there.

“Maybe if you let me get to know you a little better,” she said gently, “maybe I can help you figure out who you are. Or I can help you find a place in the world where you can  
belong and make a new life for yourself.”

Still nothing. Then he looked up at her, his face the mix of desperation and disbelief that only those who have almost completely lost hope could have--not excited, but willing to take a chance, even without enthusiasm.

“Mm-hm,” she said, smiling. 

“Well, I’ve got nothing better to do,” he said. 

“Good!” said Grace eagerly. “Come with me.” She stood up to lead him back to the consultation office. He followed.

Inside the office, the computer with its square monitor sat on a half-desk in front of two chairs. Bucky took a seat, not looking at Grace while she pulled up a career placement  
program.

“So how old are you, Bucky?” she asked.

Bucky didn’t answer. She turned to look at him. He only looked back at her, crestfallen.

“Do you know how old you are?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m...not really sure.” The words came out of his mouth leadenly.

“Is it your amnesia?”

“I guess so,” he said. 

“Well, then would you mind if I guessed your age?” Grace inquired.

He gave a slight shrug that could easily have been an involuntary twitch.

“Hm…” she said, sticking the end of her pen in her mouth. “If I had to guess your age, I’d put you in your late twenties or early thirties. Does that sound like that could be right?”

“You might be.”

“I’ll go ahead and say...I’ll go ahead and say you’re thirty-one. Can’t go wrong with a prime number.” She inserted the information ‘John Doe, age 31” into the program.

“Let’s see, you’re about five foot-something, I’ll put it at five-foot six, a hundred and fifty pounds, a little on the muscular side. And yes, you’re ‘ambidextrous,’ you said so  
yourself last night.” Grace gave a little laugh and looked back to see if he got the joke. He sat still and looked at her blankly. She sighed.

“How about your educational background, then?” she said. “Can you read and write in English?”

“I can. A little.”

“Do you know any other languages?”

She looked at him. He gave her the blank stare again. “Do you speak, read, or write in any other languages?”

He blinked.

“How about Spanish? Can you speak Spanish. Habla espanol?”

“No,” he said, his mouth moving minimally.

“Then let’s just assume you only speak English. You could do a lot, though, if you learned Spanish.” She went back to the computer and typed in more information. “Do you recall  
ever attending High School or college?”

“No,” he said, looking down again.

“Do you remember attending elementary school? Junior high, even?” She looked at him, willing him to give her some kind of response. Certainly the memories of even these  
human experiences could not have eluded him. But he only stared at the linoleum floor.

“Bucky,” she said. “Bucky, please, I’m trying to help you.”

He only shook his head very slightly.

“Let’s move on. You seem like a strong guy. Do you work out?”

No response.

“Do you bench press, ever? How much can you carry?”

Nothing.

“Can you carry quite a bit of weight?”

“Sure,” he nodded.

“Okay,” she fudged a few numbers on the form. “Looks like a good place to start for you would be a warehouse job or a factory job. They have a few openings at--”

“No,” he said. She stopped, there was an edge of fear to his voice.

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t--I can’t work for anyone--please don’t--”

“Bucky, calm down, I’m not trying to hurt you,” she said. She reached to put a reassuring hand on his left shoulder. He squirmed out of her reach.

“Please don’t!”

“I’m sorry. Please, remain calm. Now tell me, calmly, if you can, why you cannot work. Is it your amnesia? Do you have a physical impairment? A heart condition?” Then she  
cocked her head at his pocketed hand. “Is it your hand, then, or your arm? Is anything the matter with it?”

He looked away from her. Then he looked up at her, then over his shoulder, then back at her again.

“Can you close the door, please?” he said. 

“Of course,” she said, realizing that he was being serious. She stood up and closed the door. Turning around, she saw that he had risen from his chair. They stood facing each  
other, wordless. He was clutching his bad arm with his good one.

“Now,” he stammered, “please--” He broke off, unable to speak. Then, slowly, he retrieved his hand from his pocket. Something shiny caught the light from his hand. It was his hand. Individual bits of silver, bound together to make a prosthetic limb. He pulled up his sleeve just slightly so she could see that it went on.

She had seen horrific injuries, heared injury stories that made her blood run cold. It was her professional duty to not scream, and she did not. She could feel the muscles on her face straining from trying to keep a straight face.

“How much--?” she asked, not wanting to finish the question.

“Clear to the shoulder,” he said.

“I swear, I will never tell a living soul,” said Grace. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he said, putting the silver hand back into the jacket pocket, seemingly where it belonged. She opened the door, and he walked out.

III.

He didn’t stay at the shelter that night, or the next. It was not until a week after his first visit that she saw him again. She was at the front desk, in charge of directing new shelter patrons to the various facilities. He gave her a slight smile when he entered. She gave him one twice as big. He looked away, but seemed a little more cheered than a minute before.

After closing the front desk and the office for the night, Grace went to the dining area. It was nine-thirty. He was seated by himself, but when she called out to him he looked up.

“Hey Bucky.”

“You don’t have to say my name so loud,” he told Grace after she had sat down.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I need to be a little more sensitive.”

“No, you’re fine,” said Bucky. There was that slight smile again, barely teasing the ends of his lips. 

“How have you been?”

“All right,” he shrugged. “I can manage fine out there, really, but I don’t always feel up to scavenging my own meals.”

“Have you been to any of the other homeless shelters in the area?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t go much further than a few miles away.”

“Where do you get food, normally?”

He gave her a wary look, his lips sealed to prohibit an answer.

“I mean, when you don’t come here, where do you get your food from?”

“Oh, that’s what you meant?” he said, relieved. “Well, just here and there. Dumpsters. Restaurants and grocery stores.”

Grace nodded. “Any in particular?”

“That Walmart place has some pretty good leftovers,” he said. 

“And do you gather it all with one hand?” she asked, lowering her voice.

A flush of embarrassment crossed his pale cheeks.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up,” she said hastily.

“No, no, it’s fine,” he said, waving his utensil at her again. He resumed finishing his cream of chicken soup.

“Actually,” she said, inching her face closer to his and then whispering, “I wanted to ask you something about that. No, no, don’t give me that look,” she said when he began to  
scoot away from her. “It was more in the line of a proposition. Would you like a glove to cover that hand?”

“A glove?” he asked, confused.

“Yes, so you can use it without anyone seeing what it’s, er, made of.”

He gave a very brief glance at his pocketed left hand. “Actually, I do pull it out some of the time,” he said very quietly, “but that’s only when I know nobody’s looking.”

“And when you use the restroom,” she added. 

“Yes,” he said, blushing a little more. “But, yes, a glove would be nice. I used to have one, but it got torn up. Maybe you could get me a flesh-colored so no one will notice if  
they’re looking too closely.”

“That might be creepy, actually,” she realized.

“Well, a solid-colored one, then.”

“Perfect,” said Grace. “Next time I get a chance I’ll go through the clothing donations and see what we have. They may even let me buy you one, if I can get the request approved.”

“Well, you don’t have to go out on a limb for me,” said Bucky.

“No, I’m just trying to help,” said Grace. “It’s what I do. I want you to be comfortable and secure.”

“You don’t need to help me,” he said. “You might not make a difference.” he scraped the last bit of soup out of his tray. “Well, I guess I’ll go turn in my tray, now.” He got up and  
left. She went to go help in the kitchen. She did have a laugh, though, when she realized the pun he had made accidentally. 

The next day as she worked at the shelter, she used some of her free time to go through the clothing donations to see if she could find any suitable gloves. She found the perfect one, a slender black leather left-handed man’s glove that was not too conspicuous. But even as providential as it was to find a glove that suited her idea of what he needed, she began to wonder if he would like it. But she swallowed and left that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach where she could forget it.

Bucky had stayed in the shelter for the day, which pleased her beyond any doubts she had about the glove. She found him in the living area, but what he was doing there  
surprised her. He was talking to Mikhailovsky, the old Russian man who was a regular there. And he was speaking to him in Russian, fluently. And it amazed her that they even had anything to talk about. Bucky wasn’t saying much, but Mikhailovsky was laughing, apparently at a joke of his own telling, not betraying disappointment in the slightest that Bucky wasn’t laughing back. She was so stunned by the sight of him interacting almost normally with another person that she nearly forgot why she had come, until he looked up and saw her in the doorway to the living area. He only paused briefly, then resumed talking to Mikhailovsky. Mikhailovsky looked up and saw her as well. He made a comment to Bucky about what a nice girl she was who worked so hard to take care of the shelter patrons. Bucky made his reply in Russian, and Mikhailovsky laughed. Grace wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

“You didn’t tell me you could speak Russian,” said Grace.

Bucky looked up at her shyly, then back at the floor. Mikhailovsky left them.

“Why didn’t you?”

Bucky eyed the glove in her hand. “I see you’ve found me a glove,”

“Oh, yes, I have,” she said, suddenly remembering it. She handed it to him. “Try it on.”

Bucky stood up to leave the room.

“Wait, where are you going?” 

“To try it on,” he said. She waited for him in the seat that had been abandoned by Mikhailovsky, cursing herself for forgetting his need for privacy.

When he returned, his left arm was hanging down freely by his side. A first since he had come to the Shelter.

“How does it fit?” she asked.

“Perfect,” he answered, flexing the gloved hand. “Thanks. Now I don’t want any more help from you.”

“Really?” she recoiled, stunned at his brusque dismissal.

“Yes. You don’t need to be hanging around me.”

“Well,” she said, downcast, “let me know if you want anything else. Or you could always ask one of the other workers. I’ll be in my office.” She got up and left. She did not even  
see him looking back at her with some remorse.

That night at dinner she was in the serving line again, and he apologized to her briefly. The apology took her a little by surprise. It was a slow night, and they finished cleaning  
the kitchen early, so she went to the dining area to say hello to him. They made small talk about her graduate studies and said good night, parting on much better terms.  
Bucky would drift in and out of the shelter for the next month. He remained hopelessly shy and uncomfortable. If Grace or anyone else asked about his past, or his gloved hand, or even the most ordinary subject, like his birthday or his family or his friends or skill set, he would fall silent, look away and not talk. Sometimes he would give strong protests that he did not have anything to say, or that the person asking didn’t need to know. When he hung out in the common area, he would sit by himself in one of the chairs, arms straight against the armrests, feet flat on the floor, back straight, not saying anything, not doing anything, just breathing. Sometimes Grace wished she could see what was in his mind, just so she could understand him a little better, maybe even help him. Even if the things in his mind were horrifying and frightening, she would have given anything to know. But there was nothing she could do to get him to open up. He was impenetrable.

Other people kept their distance, but Grace found herself becoming the only person that Bucky was comfortable with approaching him. In a small measure, it seemed, she had earned his trust. Her down time or shift breaks were spent increasingly in his company. He became acquainted with some of the regular patrons and residents of the shelter, and  
their tragic life stories were their topic of conversation. He was always interested to hear Grace’s scholarly theories about homeless life and her ideas about how to fix the welfare system. He never had anything equally interesting to respond with, but he was a good listener, and that was what mattered, especially as Grace’s life outside the shelter became busier with the progression of the school semester. It always helped her thinking process, to have someone she could bounce ideas off of. 

But whenever she asked him a question like, “What do you think about the way people do this?” or, “Why do you think such-and-such happens?” he would just shrug and look away. The one time she actually pressed him for a reason why he could not answer, he said that he genuinely did not know anything about people. He never had anything to do with them. That was just the way it was. He could not explain why. Up to that point she had believed that he had been pretending to have amnesia, but afterwards she had to concede that he did suffer from it, to a point.

Bucky’s stay at the shelter would be marked by little incidents rising from his reclusive habits that seemed, at times, to be hints of the secrets he was hiding. He was very uncomfortable, to put it mildly, around women and children, and there was no shortage of them in the shelter. A kind mother would say hello to him or a child would come near him, and he would try to back away, immobilized, not look at them. Sometimes he would say hello awkwardly back or smile and nod, but these encounters stressed him, and he almost always turned and left as fast as he could.

The other men in the men’s sleeping area had a few interesting stories about him. For the most part, Bucky stayed out of their dorm-room antics and camaraderie. If anyone tried talking to him, he brushed off the comment or ignored them. Of course if the others needed him to adjust his sleeping space or some related task, he would oblige, but with little or no comment or reply. Some days, they said, he would curl up in his bed and not do anything, not move or speak for hours at a time, and this was often the case when Grace was not at the shelter. Grace asked him once after hearing this report if he would like to be screened for depression, but he gave her the line about his problems being none of her concern. Nights when the men were too crowded or too rowdy he would leave the facility altogether, show up again one or two days later and continue as though nothing had happened.

But there were one or two nights where the shelter patrons would come to Grace and tell her that Bucky was not sleeping well. He would toss and turn and talk and cry out in his sleep. The other men had tried to console him after these incidents, but he had insisted they leave him alone. One man reported that Bucky had even threatened to use violence if he interfered. One afternoon when she was working at the shelter, one of the male shelter workers told her to come to the men’s sleeping area. Bucky had been taking a nap when all of a sudden he began screaming and crying loudly. Grace found him on his bed hyperventilating, cying and covering his head with his pillow. Grace extracted his head, then held him up to her breast and stroked his hair and kissed him, rocking him slowly. He calmed down and went back to sleep. Nothing was said between them later about the incident. The other shelter workers said he likely had PTSD, and quite a few of the combat veterans who lived in the shelter agreed.

For all the fuss caused by his presence, it was not like persons of this sort had never spent time in that shelter before. Yet why, Grace asked herself, was she taking this case so personally?

IV. 

It was late August. The Arms of Mercy Community Action Center held a raffle at a party one Friday night when Bucky was absent (mostly because the party was being held). Grace won two tickets to the county fair. She protested that she had not entered her own name into the drawing and the prize ought to go to one of the shelter’s actual patrons. However, Andrea Meen said that with the two tickets she could take one of the patrons with her as a guest: for instance, that one man whose company she happened to be favoring of late. Grace blushed more violently than she ever had in her life, and the partygoers whooped and cat-called to her as she reluctantly accepted the tickets.

Bucky returned on Sunday night for dinner. Mabel gave her a knowing wink and told her she’d cover her spot on the serving line. 

She approached Bucky in the dinner line, feeling slightly embarrassed that she would be expected to ask him on a date in front of all those people who had nothing better to do than to watch. Instead, she asked if she could join him in the line. So they got dinner together, chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and green beans. It was not until they were safely seated at a table together that she asked him, trying hard not to think of herself as “popping” the question.

“Bucky,” she asked as she planted her fork on her meat, “would you like to go to the county fair with me?”

He dropped his fork, astounded at the question. “What?”

“Would you like to go to the county fair with me? I won two tickets in the raffle last Friday. It could be fun. Getting out of the shelter and in public might do you some good, you know.” She felt like she sounded very pathetic.

“But I thought you knew I don’t like to go out in public,” said Bucky, sounding alarmed.

“No, I--I know you’re scared of being around people. But you’ve done pretty good getting used to crowds since you came to this shelter. It’ll be a stress exercise, to see how well you can handle crowds in a different setting.”

“No. I don’t want to do it.”

“Are you afraid?”

“I have every good reason to not go out in public,” he stated matter-of-factly. 

“So you are afraid.”

“No, I’m not afraid, I’m just--” He stopped, unable to finish his response. He closed his eyes and blinked hard.

“I know it must be hard,” she said, “dealing with--whatever it is that brought you here. But you don’t have to be afraid, or even ashamed to be afraid. I’ll be with you. I’ll make sure no harm comes to you.”

“You can’t guarantee that,” said Bucky. “You have no idea, no idea what you’d be up against if you tried to help me.”

“Don’t you trust me?” said Grace. “If you don’t take my word for it that I can look after you, if you don’t let yourself trust anyone, you’ll never have any happiness in your life, much less get anywhere.”

He didn’t respond. He simply sat with his mouth shut, not looking at her.

“Haven’t you had enough of this? Enough of the hiding? Enough of the waiting around for things to be perfect for you to come out of your shell?”

“It’s not as simple as you think,” he said. “I can’t just stop acting like --like I need to look after myself.” He was silent for another moment.

“Yes, but if you want to,” she coaxed him, “if you ever get to leave the past behind you, you’re going to have to start somewhere. You’ll have to start someday. Why not tomorrow  
night at the fair?” She did not intend for him to answer her right away, so she let him sit in his silence and started to cut at her steak.

He took a couple of bites of his food. Then he spoke. His reply was so sudden that she was startled.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go to the fair with you,” he said.

She swallowed her food. “You mean it? You really want to come with me?”

“Yes, and I will,” he said, giving her his rare smile. It was a really nice smile, she thought to herself.

She was so relieved and happy and excited at once that she felt her heart was going to jump out of her chest. “Oh, Bucky, thank you so much!”

“Now just a minute, though,” he said, “I don’t have any money. The tickets you got are already paid for, but --”

“I’ll pay for everything else,” she said. “I have some money set aside for occasions like these. Food, games, rides, you name it. I’ll pay for both of us to have a good time.”  
Bucky seemed all right with that part of the arrangement. They agreed to meet the next night in the front lobby right before dinner. She dressed casually, dark levis, her dark gray fuzzy wool sweater and her black jacket to go over that, her hair straightened to pin exactness and parted in the middle, natural shades of makeup. He found some new clothes in the donation box just for the occasion, a long-sleeved red shirt to go under his jacket and almost-new jeans. They set off just as the sun was setting. On the drive over he asked her about her school. 

The fairgrounds belonged to a prosperous community on the suburbs of Denver and amounted to a miniature theme park. At the entrance, she gave the tickets to the gatekeeper and also bought wristband passes to the attractions, and the teller let them in without a second glance at her escort, much to Bucky’s relief since he had grown tense when he realized they would have to go past security.

“Come on, silly,” she said to him, taking his hand. “Now what do you want to do first?”  
Bucky suggested they get dinner first, and Grace needed little encouragement since she was hungry. They browsed some of the food stalls and found a vendor selling Navajo Tacos. They got a big one to share and ate it at the picnic table area, tearing at it with plastic knives and forks that tangled together in their attempts to tear off chunks of greasy fry bread loaded with chili and sour cream. As they ate, Grace continued to make small talk with him, but noticed him glancing off occasionally at the sources of the strange sights and sounds all around them.

Bucky gave her leave to decide where to go next, so they walked to the game booths. Grace was eager to try a shooting booth, but when she tried to get him to follow he planted his feet firmly in the ground and said no. He would not say why, but he would not hear of her going anywhere near the shooting booth, despite her protestations. So she told him to pick a carnival game. He found a fairly innocent-looking booth that hosted a game in which contestants would try to toss rings around pegs that moved back and forth on motorized sliding boards. Grace paid the fee and they each received five rings. Bucky was startled by the alarm bell that sounded when the man behind the counter turned on the device, but Grace nudged him to start tossing his hoops. Grace scored one out of five; Bucky scored perfect. The booth operator told him to claim a prize, and he declined, but Grace said Bucky could give it to her. Grace asked for a stuffed rabbit that was clutching a carrot. With some cramming it fit into her purse.

As they walked away from the booth, Grace heard Bucky inhale sharply.

“What is it?” she asked. “Do you smell something?”

“Something...something oddly familiar,” he mused, looking around to find the source of the scent. “Light, airy, kind of like hot butter…”

“I think that’s popcorn you’re smelling,” said Grace, turning him around to look at a popcorn cart right behind them. “Do you want some?”

Bucky looked wistfully at the popcorn cart. “It does smell good.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she said brightly, leading him along to the cart. She got them each a small bag of popcorn with extra butter. They walked along the lane and ate  
it. Grace shoved hers gratuitously into her mouth several kernels at a time, but she stopped when she looked up and saw Bucky eating his slowly, no more than two at a time, chewing slowly to savor the texture and taste. He didn’t make any satisfactory sounds. The look in his eyes as he ate was distant.

“Uh, tastes good, doesn’t it?” she asked him, trying to probe him.

He smacked his lips a couple of times. “I don’t know,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“Oh, no, I mean, it’s good stuff. What is it called again?”

“Popcorn?”

“Popcorn, right... it’s just, I know I’ve eaten popcorn before, it’s just, I don’t know where or when. I don’t remember how I know what this is or what it tastes like.”

“Is it your amnesia?” she asked.

“It must be,” he sighed, eating some more popcorn. 

“The last time you ate popcorn was before you had amnesia,” she reasoned.

“That would make sense,” he nodded. “But the thing is, I don’t know why I wouldn’t have eaten popcorn since then...I haven’t…” He looked at her. “I have been drifting around for  
the past several months.”

“Go on,” she nodded, paralyzed with suspense.

“Before I started drifting...I don’t know who I was or where I came from. I just existed. But I didn’t eat popcorn. There were a lot of things I didn’t do, where I was before. And  
when I set out, I didn’t know how to do them, or even what they were.” He looked at his bag of popcorn. “It was as though...someone didn’t want me to know...what a normal life was like. As if they wanted me to forget what popcorn was.”

He stared at the popcorn bag for a second longer, and then ate a couple more kernels, chewing them slowly. Grace looked down for a second, then back up at his face, solemn, pensive, no sudden burst of memory in his eyes. Then she saw that a piece of his long shaggy hair was stuck in his mouth. She giggled.

“What?” he said.

“You have a piece of hair stuck in your mouth,” she said. “Here.” He was head and shoulders taller than her, so she had to reach up to stroke the stray hair out of his face. As she did, the tips of her fingers brushed against his cheekbone and eyebrow. His eyes got wider and he looked at her open-mouthed like she had never seen before, but then he smiled and reached to touch her face with his good hand.

“You have some hair in your eyes, too,” he said, and his fingers brushed her hair across her forehead and tucked the strands behind her ear. She had a tight, tingly feeling in her gut and a flush that ran both hot and icy cold in an instant. Her only reaction was to laugh, and she ran her fingers behind her ear.

“I guess I should get a haircut,” he shrugged.

“Probably,” she laughed. She was too kind to say that she thought he desperately needed one.

They finished their popcorn and deposited the waste. Up close to the trash can was a fun house. He readily agreed to enter with her.

The funhouse was a short labyrinth of narrow corners, short obstacles, and mirrors bent in every direction. He helped her over a short step just past the entry, but she encouraged him to go on ahead, and he did so when a large concave mirror caught his attention.

While he examined the mirror and went onward, Grace took some time to think. He had just revealed more information about his past in the last two minutes than he had in the entire time she had known him, and that was saying something because she felt like she had known him for quite a while. From what he had said, it was not amnesia he was suffering some but something far more serious, something more terrifying. The word ‘brainwashed’ did brush the back of her mind, but she dismissed it as unlikely. She did, however, consider the metal arm. Was that why he was hiding it so carefully? Did it have something to do with his memory loss? Progressing along the fun house corridor, she realized that there was something he was concealing from her still: the nature of what he had been doing at the time he began to ‘drift around,’ as he had put it. It looked like a trivial piece of information, but from what she had just heard it was crucial. Squeezing around some narrow bars, she asked herself, Well, what is it going to take to find out what happened and how the effects can be reversed? The solution, she felt, would cost much time and effort to discover, and even if she did succeed, such knowledge about other people sometimes came at a price--a terrible price, if she wasn’t careful. 

She turned the corner and saw Bucky. He was in between three free-standing walls sided with convoluted mirrors. He turned around slowly, carefully considering the reflection he saw in each. 

Grace watched him from a distance. Should she ask him what had happened when he had started to wander, where he had been and what he was doing at the time? Would asking him that lead to the answers she needed in order to help him?

But what would he say, she thought, if she dared to ask him such a thing? He had resisted, to this point, giving her any personal information beyond a few hints. And what answers had come came as a result of her patient labor with him over the past few weeks. Would she jeopardize their new friendship, this newfound trust, just to answer a few questions? Was she willing to go that far?

No, she realized, he was not going to give her that information at her request. Not ever. He had been specific with her about his troubles tonight not because she had asked, but because he had found the need to tell her. It would be the same with anything else that she could learn from him: he would only give the information voluntarily. Her only role was to be there to receive it, be the listening ear when the time came. But what that meant she could hardly guess.

Bucky saw her reflection in one of the mirrors and turned around to face her. She smiled, telling herself to discard her ulterior motives. 

“Having fun?” she asked.

“It is an interesting place,” he said. “But we can move on.”

They left the fun house side by side, their arms dangling but not touching. Grace caught sight of the Ferris Wheel to their right, and Bucky followed her into the line without questioning. They stood in line silently, each with their own thoughts. The line moved forward, and they finally got a coveted seat and were buckled in and lifted into the air. But as soon as she saw their box dangling, Grace looked at the ground and grew nervous.

“What?” asked Bucky, noticing her tension.

How silly I must look to him, she thought. Normally he’s the one who get’s nervous!

“I’m not normally afraid of heights,” she said, “but it’s been a long time since I was on a Ferris wheel. I forgot how high up they get you.”

“Just don’t look down,” said Bucky. He wrapped his prosthetic arm around her shoulder, but underneath the jacket it felt almost normal, just a little stiff. They looked at each other in disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” said Bucky, acting as though he would remove his arm.

“No, no, it’s okay,” she said. “You can go ahead and do that.”

The Ferris Wheel moved back and forth a few more times to admit new passengers, then began spinning in earnest, going around ten times. It was a starless, cloudy night with a cool breeze, but no sky would have been visible against the glare of suburban Denver. She tried to look for the skyscrapers downtown but was distracted when her free hand and Bucky’s free hand met and clasped. The ride was over before they knew it, and they were removed from the Ferris wheel box before she was ready to let go. They disentangled themselves and stretched. 

“Do you want to ride the carousel next?” asked Grace.

“Sure--wait, what’s a carousel?” asked Bucky.

“It’s also called a merry-go-round. there’s horses and other things that move you can ride on. It’s a better ride for kids, really,” Grace realized. “We don’t have to--”

“Oh, no, let’s do it,” he said. “Is that it straight ahead?”

“Yes,” she said, walking toward the moving lights and music as fast as her feet could carry her. He kept pace with her.

The line for the carousel was not very long, and the current riders dismissed after only a few minutes. Grace got on and Bucky followed as she searched for a suitable mount. She  
settled for a golden charger with red ribbons painted on for reins.

“Aren’t you going to get one to ride on?” Grace asked Bucky.

Bucky looked around. “I’d rather not, actually,” he shrugged.

“Well, you’ll need to hold on to something,” she said. “Once this ride gets going it’ll be a little hard to stand.”

The carousel was put in motion. Bucky grabbed the pole next to Grace’s horse. Then he moved closer to her, she thought so he would look more like he was riding with her than  
standing around like an idiot. They looked at each other and exchanged slow, careful smiles. He put his arm around her shoulder, and she found herself leaning on to him slightly.

When they stepped off the carousel, they were holding hands.

“What else is there to do here?” he asked.

“I heard there was going to be dancing at the pavilions,” said Grace. “Do you want to check that out?”

“Sure,” he said. 

She felt a little dizzy and wondered if dancing was such a good idea right after a carousel.

The pavilions were crowded with people, mostly couples swaying gently to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” 

“How do we do this?” he asked, watching the crowd suspiciously.

“You just stand together and move,” she said, feeling that that was an inadequate explanation. “Here.” She led him to a bare patch of floor no more than four feet square. She showed him how to wrap his arms around her and to step in time. Another song started, “Open Arms,” by Journey. The darkness, the buzz and the pressing of the crowds were a lot to put up with, but standing close to him and swaying in time to the slow melody eased them both. She leaned onto his shoulder and breathed. He didn’t seem to mind.

Too soon, the song ended, they pulled apart and looked at each other, smiling awkwardly, catching the red on the other’s cheeks when the lights came back on.

The DJ announced that it was the end of the young folk’s dance and it was now time for the Swing Dance.

“Do you want to go?” she asked him.

“Mm, maybe I’d like to do more dancing first,” he said, looking around at the dispersing crowd.

“I’ve actually never done swing dancing before,” she admitted. “It’s not quite like what we were doing.”

“We could try it.”

“We could,” Grace nodded. “Let’s do it.” 

So they took a quick restroom break and returned to the pavilion to find a live band setting up and the younger couples from the previous dance replaced by gray and white-  
haired older ones. An Emcee was giving dance instruction for the benefit of those not quite so familiar with jazz dancing. Most of the instruction period resulted in them staring at each other stupidly and holding hands and making a few halfhearted attempts at some of the steps. With the band set up, the lights were turned down partially, and the players struck up a lively tune. Slowly, awkwardly, Grace and her dance partner began to attempt to imitate some of the dancers they saw whirling and high-stepping around them. True, there were some older couples who couldn’t do much, but there were also some people Grace’s age that were probably professional or semi-professional dancers. She turned her attention to Bucky. As he led her, he slowly began to gain confidence and pick up speed with their steps, attempting a few spins and slides. It was when he dipped her that she noticed there was something different about him. His face had a look of pleasant concentration, a light in his eyes she had not seen before, a lightness in the way he held her and moved with her. His semi-permanent frown was replaced with an eager smile. What was most striking to her was the naturalness with which he moved, the way he seemed to know what he was doing. When the song ended, she was in a dip, and she was laughing. They were both laughing. Grace almost stopped laughing at the realization that she had never heard him laugh before. He was not his strong and silent usual self. He was happy.

“Are you okay?” he asked her as she stood up straight.

“A little out-of-breath,” she gasped. “But are you all right?”

Bucky looked taken aback by the question. She thought he didn’t know there was anything wrong with himself. Not wrong, different.

“I don’t know,” he finally said, as the emcee congratulated his dance pupils on a job well done. The dancers applauded each other, and a very old man with glasses and a golf shirt  
gave Grace and her partner a big thumbs-up.

Bucky led her off the dance floor to catch her breath. They sat out the next two songs, then rejoined and danced the next four numbers in a row. And every time they danced, Grace was beside herself at trying to understand where the Bucky she knew had gone and who this amazing dancer was that possessed him.

The dance came to an end. They hugged each other in congratulations for their efforts that night. As they left the fairgrounds, it began to drizzle lightly.

They were not five minutes down the road when the drizzle increased to a downpour. Neither of them spoke, both pleasantly exhausted from their little adventure. Or at least Grace was. Something brooding hung over Bucky in the passenger’s seat. At a red light, Grace glanced over to look at him. He was staring at his reflection in the window, the anxiety and worry returned to weigh down his features, but with them a reluctant awe.

It was nearly midnight. They returned to find the homeless shelter silent, its lights extinguished. They had only a few steps to go to the front door from Grace’s parking place, but approaching the doorway, they both stopped. Grace looked at Bucky.

“Well,” she began hesitantly, “thanks for coming with me.”

Bucky took a minute to find his voice. “Thanks for taking me.”

She looked up at him. She did not want to take her eyes off that face. “You should get out more often.”

He only stared back at her, then looked away with that slight smile. She moved closer to him. She wrapped her arms tighter around him. He bent his head closer. They breathed  
off each other, deeply. She moved her arm up and around his neck. His prosthetic arm inched up her back, and she wondered if it could feel anything. They were both soaking wet from standing in the rain. Her lips brushed his cheek--and then his lips. What had begun as an accidental touch turned into a kiss, a passionate kiss, a series of passionate kisses. She thought nothing as she kissed him, only felt the slight thrill that he was kissing her back, and though they were both bone-chilled from the wet she felt warm in his embrace--he made her cold, but she felt warm on the inside still, not just heat from excitement but something calmer and sweeter.

Slowly, so slowly, it felt like an eternity of stillness, she withdrew from him, then dug in her pocket for her keys and unlocked one of the doors. She opened it wide, and Bucky let himself in. He turned back once to her but was motionless, wordless. She smiled discreetly and returned to the car.

She could hardly sleep that night for wondering what had befallen her. She had never thought that she would ever fall for someone who stayed at the shelter--it was a risk she had calculated, but never taken seriously. And Grace had never thought she would fall for an older man, much less one with such an opaque background or insistent silence. Yet she had seen a side of him that night she never in her wildest dreams could have expected to encounter. 

And finally, finally, he had revealed a glimpse into his past, and she was not only relieved that he had begun to break his silence but also felt deeply sorry for him. She was sorry that he had forgotten to live a normal life, but it disturbed her to no end to wonder who would want him to forget the taste of popcorn.

The next afternoon she returned for work at the homeless shelter, still confused about the previous night’s events but strangely wanting to see him. When she entered the lobby, Mabel greeted her at the front desk with a letter that had her name on it. Grace went into the office to read it.

Grace,

By the time you read this letter, I will be hitchhiking out of town. Last night was the happiest night of my life in a long time. Thank you so much for everything you have given me. However, I am still in danger and I do not want you to get hurt because of me. I wish I could have told you more about my recent past but having that knowledge would have put you at risk. My feelings for you were genuine but people have gotten hurt because they knew me. I don’t want that to be you. As guilty as I feel leaving you in the lurch I would feel even more guilty if you became a target. I do not think anyone who is looking for me is in the area so you should be safe for the time being. I am so sorry I have to do this and I hope you understand.

Bucky.

P.S. Destroy this message after reading.

Grace didn’t know how to react. She took a snapshot of the letter on her phone as a keepsake but then ran it through the shredder. Mabel had guessed what had happened and advised that she not work that day. Grace didn’t argue: she had to go back to the university to work on her thesis anyway. But she spent the rest of the week looking for him, over her shoulder, on the corners, in the alleys she passed by.

It was not until the weekend that the reality of what had happened had set in. She spent all of Saturday and Sunday home in her apartment, listening to overplayed love songs and eating nutty chocolate ice cream, the whole half-gallon. And crying. She gave the stuffed bunny to a little girl at the shelter and never spoke of Bucky to anyone.

In all of this Grace never, ever blamed him. It was herself she blamed, for letting herself get so attached to someone so vulnerable, someone she couldn’t keep, to tempt someone else with an offer of something she had known he could never have. Grace had to forgive herself, or else she would never be able to move on, she knew from experience, but that forgiveness was only conditional upon her never hearing that any harm had come on him afterward.

V.

Nearly a month after his final disappearance, just when Grace was starting to think she might get over him, one day when she was working at the front desk a black government sedan pulled into the parking lot. A girl not much younger than herself climbed out, dressed in a black pantsuit.

“Yes, how can I help you?” said Grace mechanically.

“My name is Emily Bridger. I’m looking for someone.”

“On behalf of whom?”

“Myself and my friends. Did a man meeting this description spend a few weeks in your shelter?” Emily unfolded the binder at her side to reveal a photograph.

It was him.

“I’d know that face anywhere,” said Grace. “I’m so sorry. He’s long gone.”

Miss Bridger took Grace and Mabel aside to talk. She only asked questions, but revealed nothing. She asked to read his farewell note and Grace texted her the picture. When she left, Grace noticed that she seemed a little emotional. 

A week after this incident, a policeman came by to say he had noticed some government agents forming a covert perimeter around the Arms of Mercy Community Action Center. But whoever they were, they left the shelter and its patrons well alone. Whatever danger had drawn them there, it was not within.

The next day after the policeman came by, there was a card in the mail from an address in Washington, D.C. There was a hundred dollar donation for the shelter as well as a note that read: “Thank you for looking after my best friend. God bless you for all you do. S. Rogers.”


End file.
